The little Tailor-bird, supposed to be about the smallest bird in this part of Southern Asia, is a very common resident of Foochow and vicinity. While other species are migrating with the changing seasons this little friend remains throughout the entire year in its chosen home.

Description

The Tailor-bird is about 3 3-4 to 4 1-4 inches in length. It is a uniform light olive-green on entire upper parts. The forehead is a delicate shade of brown. Entire under parts pearl gray. The beak is straight and pointed. Male and female almost identical, except that the male bird often has tail quills extended slightly, giving the appearance of pins.

Nest and Eggs

The picture books of our boyhood days but very poorly give an idea of the nest and nesting habits of the ever busy little friend. The habits of the bird are very much like those of the Carolina Wren of the homeland. One naturally feels that he has met some member of the Wren family upon first forming an acquaintance with the little Tailor-bird, and as the nesting season approaches he begins to follow the little fellow among the flower pots of the door yard, hoping to see him disappear inside the door of a Wren’s home. The bird is very seldom seen at any very great height from the ground, so it is but natural that we should expect to find the nest among the flowers of the garden as this is the most favorite resort of the bird.

The nest is a very compact structure, composed of only the very softest vegetable fiber, webs and plant down. There is a slight framework of grasses which seems to be used for no other purpose than to give form and strength to the nest. This little nest is firmly riveted to a folded leaf, or as the case may be, to one or more leaves which have been made to constitute the walls of the little residence.

The bird very skillfully draws the leaves together and pierces them with her beak. Through these holes webs and hempen fiber is threaded in such a way as to form a rivet which cannot be withdrawn through the same hole. These threads are shortened and interwoven in such a way as to draw the leaf, or leaves, forming the exterior wall of the nest into a cup-shape. Within the confines of these walls the compact structure is skillfully formed into a little home.

Figure No. 1, shows the next of the Tailor-bird in a large banana leaf. This next was about eighteen feet from the ground and contained four eggs. Figure No. 2, shows a next constructed by the same pair of birds. This nest was constructed within three days from the time next No. 1 was taken. This next was placed in the leaf of a canna, and only eleven inches from the ground.

Fig. 2, NEST OF TAILOR-BIRD.

Both of these photos will serve to correct the idea that the Tailor-bird sews its nest up in a leaf in the criss-cross fashion as portrayed in our picture books.

Fig. 3, NEST OF TAILOR-BIRD.

Figure No. 3 shows a next placed between two or more leaves, and gives a fair idea of the method with which the bird rivets its next to the leaves. This next was located almost twenty feet from the ground. Another next was being built in a wisteria vine about six feet from the ground. The faithful little pair labored nearly a week trying to form this mass of material into a home. The leaves of the wisteria were not strong enough to sustain the weight of the nest so it was necessary for the birds to select a more suitable nesting site. This was accomplished in the selection of the nesting site as shown in figure No. 3.

The eggs of the Tailor-bird generally number four, and are of a clear white, or white slightly tinted with green, ground color, marked and spotted with red and brown. The average size of the egg is about that of the Blue-gray Gnat-catcher, though slightly longer and of a more oval shape.

Habits

This little wren-like bird is one of the most common residents of this immediate part of southern China. It lives in close proximity to the ground, and is seldom seen in trees, except while passing from one feeding ground to another. The flight of the bird is very noticeable. It passes from tree to tree with the seeming effort of a wounded bird, or one that has been drenched with the pouring rain. The little pair seem to be very devoted to each other, and are just as inseparable during the winter months as during the breeding season.

Often while busy in search of food, the little pair become separated and one of the birds mounts some pinnacle and utter a clear loud note which brings a low response from the mate from the nearby bush, and soon the happy pair are at work side by side peering into every crevice and among the dead leaves for miller or larva which makes up the daily diet.

The notes of the bird, like its actions, very much resemble those of the Carolina Wren. You have all heard the Wren from some fence post call its mate Eugena, eu-ge-na, and in like manner do we often hear the little Tailor-bird call Tu-dok, tu-dok, tu-dok, which happens to be the name of many little Chinese boys.

There is a common proverb among the Chinese to the effect, “The Tailor-bird lays Goose eggs,” which metaphor means, “A small ting accomplishing much.” This would indicate that the Tailor-bird is considered by the natives to be about the smallest bird in China. So far as my observation goes I should say that it is.

Is It a Water-Thrush?

One of the most interesting features in the study of bird life in a foreign land is the comparison of species with like species in the homeland. I have been much interested in following up the comparison of specie in this section of China with birds common to my home field of study in Tennessee, though I have found quite a number of birds which appear to be strangers to anything with which I am acquainted.

NESTING SITE - A GLIMPSE OF CHINA

One of the most interesting specie with which I have met is what I should term a Water Thrush. The home of this bird is in the wild ravines of the mountain passes. The bird is somewhat the shape of the American Robin, but quite a little larger. The male is of a uniform deep black with feathers tipped with blue giving the bird a decided blue tint. The female is about the same color with markings less distinct.

I visited a wild ravine only a few minutes walk from my home where a clear little stream rushes down from the distant top of the mighty mountain. This visit was paid in early April, and at that time I found a pair of these Thrushes (?) had chosen the ravine as a summer home. After a few minutes search among the rocks I found the great bulky nest of green moss and mud upon the bare face of an overhanging rock. The nest was wet with the spray from the ever roaring stream only a few feet below. This nest has all the appearance of an abnormally large Phoebe’s nest except that the inner lining is of dried leaves and a few rootlets. The set of partly incubated eggs taken from this nest number four, and are of a white clay color with a purplish tint shading into a wreath around the larger end. The eggs are rather larger than those of a Brown Thrasher.

NEST IN SITUATION

The habits of this bird are peculiar to itself. I have never seen the bird except in close proximity to some of the wilds of nature. The most common retreat is in some mountain gorge where a clear stream lashes itself into a spray over the cataracts and falls. Here the bird may be seen flying from rock to rock just above the spray of the current, and alighting upon some little pinnacle, expanding its broad black tail as if delighting in its rich and glossy hues. These birds are quite solitary even during the breeding season. I have never seen them show the least fellowship with other birds, or even with those of their own kind. The note of the bird Che-e-e, uttered in a clear whistling tone. Other than this I have never heard a sound from the bird.

In the accompanying pictures you will see the nest and home of the pair from which I secured a set of eggs. Upon first consideration you may lead to pronounce the bird an Ouzel, but I think there is hardly any resemblance between the two birds. The bird does not, so far as I have been able to detect, ever enter the water except, possibly, to run along on the shoals in search of insects and larva.

I would be glad to have your ideas upon the subject, and any one addressing me at Foochow, China, will certainly receive an immediate reply to any matters of inquiry.

Miscellaneous Notes

A person who has paid special attention to bird life in the temperate portion of the middle and southern States, upon arriving at the barge port of Foochow, China, and looking out upon a climate always breezy and balmy would naturally think he would soon meet a great number of friends among members of the feathered tribe. He soon begins to recognize a great many very marked inconsistencies however, for though he stands in the midst of one vast flower garden of nature, he does not see any variety of the little Humming-bird so common to a spot like this in the homeland. This is one of the first facts which the observer meets, and here begins a long series of just such disappointments. During the almost three years of my stay in China I have seen but few, if any, of the Warbler family. This is quite as surprising as the above, for the climate and surroundings seem especially adapted to such birds. During the Spring and early summer the Flycatchers seem to predominate, but these too, with the exception of possibly two or three varieties remove to other quarters as the nesting season draws nigh. One very beautiful variety of this family is the Paradise Flycatcher. This bird arrives from winter quarters just as the trees are fresh and green with their Easter attire. Its beautiful rich brown color blends nicely with its surroundings as it dashes and whirls amid the foliage and flowers in quest of its food. The male bird has a very glossy black head and neck, belly and underparts silvery gray, and entire upper surface a very deep shade of brown. The two central tail quills are prolonged to nearly twice the length of the bird. This addition of tail seems to come with age however, for I have seen many male birds which were deprived of such ornament. The nest of the Paradise Flycatcher is well in keeping with the grace and beauty of the bird. It is a structure of green moss, lichens and webs on the outer surface, deeply cupped and lined with fine rootlets and palm fiber. The nest is generally placed in a vertical fork from ten to forty feet from the ground. One interesting feature of this otherwise very interesting specie, is that the male bird willingly takes his turn in incubating. It is a rather interesting spectacle to see this bird nearly fifteen inches in length incubating on a nest not larger than the ordinary Blue-gray Gnatcatcher’s nest.

One has not arrived long in the port of Foochow when he hears the familiar note of the Chickadee from some of the overhanging boughs of the ever green olive trees. To all appearances of sight and sound he has now met his little friend Parus atricapillus, but here too, he meets a surprise as well as a disappointment. I had carefully observed several pairs of these birds during the greater part of an entire nesting season and had become much perplexed upon finding myself unable to locate the nesting site. But finally I saw the female bird fly to the top of a high pine with a worm in her beak, and a moment later drop from that height like a stone to the ground. Upon examination I found a small hole in the almost level ground and after excavating near fifteen inches disclosed a typical nest of the Chickadee family containing seven well fledged young. Since that day I have found many nests of this bird in like locations and in one or two instances in the cavity of trees. One or more very peculiar nesting sites which have some under my observation might be worth mentioning. The fields and hillsides in this section are terraced for the growing of rice. These terraces are generally from one to three feet high containing several inches of water. I once found the home of a Chickadee in one of these terraces though it hardly seemed that there could be a dry spot between these two surfaces of water. This bird had found a very small hole in the dyke but a few inches above water line, and in this home had a family of six little ones.

During the spring months there are indeed a great variety of birds to be found throughout this section, but as the nesting season draws near they gradually disappear until the month of Many finds comparatively few species who make this their summer home. Of these there is no family better represented than the heron. There are a number of species of the heron which are marked only by a difference of coloration. Some are snow white, others white with buff colored head and back, others white with very deep brown head and neck and others almost black. These birds live and nest in great colonies in the massive banyan trees overhanging some temple court or the narrow busy street. There are three or four large trees in the heart of this city (Ku-cheng) which have hundreds of nests of these birds. It seems as though every available place has a slight platform of sticks through which can easily be seen the pale green eggs or incubating bird. During the breeding season these birds may be seen by hundreds gracefully flying to and from the nearby rice fields where they feed.

It is estimated that one of these large banyan trees would produce from five hundred to one thousand eggs of this specie, but still we find it difficult to secure sets of the eggs. Such trees as these massive banyans are held sacred and often worshipped. Though the Chinaman is willing to do many things in order to earn his rice, it is almost impossible to find a person who would dare climb one of these trees to collect a few sets of heron eggs even though he be offered a bowl of rice for every egg. There is a fixed belief that the god who makes his home in this tree would be very angry if a person would intrude upon his rights to the extent of climbing into his home. This superstition has protected these herons to the extent that they nest yearly by the hundreds in certain of the many massive banyans overhanging the busy streets.

(Published in American Ornithology for the Home and School in 1903 by Harry Russell Caldwell, Methodist missionary to Foochow.)

In the summer of 1901 the Rev. F. Ohlinger, of the Methodist Episcopal Mission, made the suggestion to me that in such a large Christian student centre as Foochow it ought to be possible to develop really good singing, and that we should aim at some kind of annual Choral Festival for which the schools should prepare.

We then determined to make an appeal to the leading Christian schools and colleges and ask them to co-operate and to take part in such a festival on the Easter Monday of 1902. We prepared one simple anthem for all the schools to practice and asked each school in addition to prepare a special piece of its own. The idea was very warmly taken up, and when the day arrived the largest church in Foochow, holding nearly 2,000 people, was completely crowded out. Three services were held on that first day, an effort which we have long since abandoned, and we were all fairly tired out when the day was over. But the festival had been a success. The music was very simple and entirely in unison, there was no separation between the choir and the congregation; there was no conductor and there had been no rehearsal beforehand and therefore there were many mistakes and much to be desired, but the Chinese were greatly pleased and it was generally felt that the movement was full of possibilities. It was therefore decided at the next united monthly prayer-meeting that a committee should be chosen of one lady and one gentleman from each of the three missions to arrange for a similar festival on the Easter Monday of 1903.

For the first few years the singing was entirely in unison and though there was a choir, it did not face the congregation.

We very soon, however, gave up the practice of each school singing a special piece: that was only done the first year and we saw how easily it would lead to rivalry and break down the thought of worship which we were trying to cultivate. From the first there has always been a short ten to fifteen minutes’ address on the resurrection and a few general hymns for the congregation.

With the advent of part singing and the choir facing the congregation a great advance was made and at last we have come to limit the choir to 150 voices, each school being allowed so many. This year sixteen schools took part, (eight girls’ schools and eight boys) and the greatest number of voices allowed to any one school was sixteen. Male voices in proportion are allowed to the senior schools, as they have naturally more voices capable of being trained and no voices are allowed to day schools. In addition to the general choir of 150 there is now a special choir of 132 voices chosen from the University (men) and the College Preparatory (girls). This special choir sings a special anthem and represents perhaps the high water mark to which our part singing has reached. We had two big anthems this year sung by the general choir, one of which “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem,” by Maunder, being quite difficult, and yet it was sung excellently, and with good expression. We are, of course, fortunate in having in Mr. Newell a very capable conductor and we were able this Easter to have three general rehearsals.

Another special feature of the Easter Festival of recent years has been the blind boys’ band. This band plays during the collection which adds greatly to the service.

It is necessary now to have two services each year, one on Easter Monday and one in another centre on the Saturday before Easter. Even so we have to limit the numbers attending each service to 2,000 by ticket, and it will be readily seen that a good deal of thought and organization is necessary.

For many years we struggled with debt, caused chiefly by printing our own music, but now we order music direct from home and then translate the English into Chinese and get each school to make its own copies with a Chinese pen. The collections each year amount to about $50 and this more than covers all the expenses of the festival, i.e., teas, platform, etc., and we have a balance at present of about $80 in hand.

The improvement in the singing here has been so marked since the Choral Union was started and the interest aroused in the Easter Festival has been so greatly especially in the schools, that I cannot help thinking that something on similar lines might be tried in almost all large student centres.

(By W. S. Pakenham-Walsh, first published in the Chinese Recorder of June 1919.)

Sep 28, 2014

While the main party was en route to Shanghai, Mrs. Emaroy J. Smith and her son Mr. Kenneth Smith were in the important city of Foochow, China. The fascinating story of this trip, from the pen of Mrs. Smith, follows:

Now comes the part of our journey that we dislike most embarking in the small vessel Hæan of the China Merchant Line en route to Foochow. We are glad to find aboard Miss Helen Crane, our former fellow-passenger of the Tenyo, who sat next us at table during our voyage across the Pacific. Miss Crane, accompanied by Miss Wells of Shanghai, is going to Foochow to open work for the Y. W. C. A., in response to the awakening caused by the Mott meetings, during which six hundred young women had signed cards expressing their desire to study the Bible and inquire into Christianity. How fortunate they are to have Miss Crane - bright, attractive, versatile, a graduate of Bryn Mawr - respond to that call for service! Could her life be better invested than answering this call from the Orient where she will seek to establish Christian ideals for the girls of China?

English missionaries were driven out of Foochow forty years ago. Less than twenty years ago eleven missionaries laid down their lives as martyrs; now there are 12,000 students in modem colleges.

Miss Crane and Miss Wells, with two young Germans in Chinese mail service, made up our first-class passenger list. We were told there were 150 second-class passengers below us, but only knew this from the fumes of opium that escaped from below. The weather was unfavorable. We were shut in by a dense fog that the captain said was worse than anything he had known for fifteen years on the China coast. Without wireless telegraphy or the modem equipment of the larger vessels to aid us in an emergency, we were relieved when the fog lifted and we were able to make the mouth of the River Min going in with the tide. A party of friends, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. George Hubbard, missionaries of the American Board, Miss Martha Wiley, and Miss Deahl, came out in a launch to meet us.

We were surrounded as soon as our vessel anchored with numberless sampans propelled with long oars by Chinese women. There was great confusion, all of them shouting and struggling for first place next our vessel, in order to secure cargo or passengers. We stepped in one at the risk of our lives. A slender, sinewy Chinese woman, dressed in blue, her black hair coiled in the neck and adorned by a bright flower, stood erect in bow of boat and pushed us away, with her long pole, from the other boats knocking our sides. She then began to use the pole in the water, her strong body swaying back and forth in graceful motion. Her movements reminded us for a moment of the Venetian gondolier, but there the likeness ended. Our boat-woman’s mother was pushing paddle in stem of boat, with grandchildren scrambling about her. On these boats children are born, live, and
die, sometimes four generations living together.

What is this large, stately looking vessel coming alongside us, with large sails wide-spread? On its bow are painted in colors two big eyes. This we are told is a “Ningpo Junk.” Our boat-woman now works swiftly, taking a long pole on the end of which is a hook; she fastens it securely to the side of this passing ship, and thus we are towed to the landing at Foochow City.

Here excitement reigns supreme. There is much shouting and confusion. One wonders how they are to be extricated from it all. We pass from our sampan to another craft and still another before the wharf can be reached. Miss Wiley alights to find coolies and sedan chairs. She shouts loudly in Chinese to keep the party together, and finally we make our way up South Street. We can never forget that memorable ride of nearly four miles in our sedan chairs.

Now we are seeing China. Shanghai was not China. Here is the narrow street, irregularly paved with stones, swarming and seething with Chinese of all classes. Here is the field woman, her hair decorated with silver pins, and large silver rings in her ears. From the ends of a pole carried over her shoulder are suspended heavy buckets. As she passes, you are aware of unpleasant odors and wish you had brought your smelling salts. You discover she is the sewerage channel for conducting refuse from city to field.

Old Chinese women with bound feet are sitting in the doorways; dirty, half-clad children play in the streets. A stream of sedan chairs shouldered by coolies is constantly passing. Sometimes the occupant of these chairs is a Chinese lady belonging to the official class, sometimes a merchant, or it may be a European. The coolies constantly shift the heavy poles from one shoulder to the other. We notice there are deep furrows in their shoulders. There are also deep lines upon their faces that indicate the hard physical toil they are daily subjected to. Their muscles rise in great ridges on limbs and arms, suggesting the strain to which they have been put. As they travel over the rough stone pavement, they shout as they pass to open up the congested street. We pass the fish-market, the open shop where Chinese artisans are working on silver and hammered brass, lacquer, and embroidery.

We were not sorry to arrive at the American Board Compound - we enter a court leading to the house of our lady missionaries. It is bright with flowers, and presents an inviting and attractive picture, in strong contrast to the noise and the motley throng we leave in the busy street. Here we were made most comfortable and very hospitably entertained during our sojourn in Foochow.

PASTOR HSU CAIK HANG, FOOCHOW

GIRLS AT MR. CHANG’S PARTY, SHANGHAI

UNDER A CHINESE ARBOR, FOOCHOW

CHRISTIAN HERALD ORPHANAGE, FOOCHOW

One day we visited the Christian Herald Orphanage, where we took pictures of the boys working in the garden. The young man who has charge of the garden gave me the following list of vegetables that the boys raised: watercress, red spinach, green peas, long bean, snake gourd, sword bean, com, eggplant, calabash, onion, leeks, pumpkin. Pastor Hang, of Foochow, is at the left of picture, and the boy, holding bouquet of flowers that were later presented to us, we were told, had already shown a very marked tendency for raising flowers and vegetables.

A special program was prepared for us here, the children speaking pieces and singing songs. We were asked to take seats on the platform and to make a speech. We gave them some words of greeting from children of the United States, and told them how American children loved to sing the same songs, study the same Bible, and to work and play as they do.

The day that stands out above all others as affording the purest, richest enjoyment while in Foochow, was the day spent at Sharp Peake. Mr. and Mrs. George Hubbard, Mr. Miner, head of the Methodist Boys’ Academy, Miss Wiley, and Miss Deahl, Kenneth, and myself, with Mr. Ding, an earnest young Chinese, who has charge of industrial work in Foochow, make up our party.

Early in the morning we go aboard our steam launch, which we have chartered for the day, and sail up the beautiful Min River. We pass mountainous islands. From the shore rise towering terraced cliffs, which have been compared to those of the Rhine. The Min compares not only with the picturesque beauty of the Rhine, but has as well the charm gathered from the past of its own traditions. There stands a tower erected by a wife to welcome back her husband from a long voyage, but, when he saw the strange mark, he concluded he had mistaken the estuary, and sailed away never to return. We pass the old arsenal, partly destroyed by the French fleet.

We land at a small fishing village on the shores of Sharp Peake Island. Our coolie carries on his shoulder the huge lunch baskets generously provided by our kind and thoughtful Mrs. Hubbard, who has been unfailing in her attention since our arrival. The people of the village gather curiously about us as we land, but most of them, especially the women and children, ran frightened away when the kodak was pointed toward them, so there was left in our picture only the members of our party, our coolie carrying the lunch baskets, and a few boatmen.

We climb up the hill, the sides of which are planted with young pine trees and terraced with growing crops. Some one has been working here to beautify this hill. On reaching the top we view a group of workmen, starving Manchu soldiers and boys sent up from the city by Miss Emily Hartwell. Now that the Manchu dynasty has been overthrown, their stipend has been withdrawn by the government. Thousands of these men, who have no trades and no means of earning a living, are facing starvation.

BOYS OF INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, BEACON HILL FARM, FOOCHOW

STARVING MANCHU SOLDIERS AT THE SAME FARM

We find a substantial cottage at the top of the hill. At the entrance is gathered a group of fine Chinese boys, who have led their goats up for our inspection. Miss Hartwell has discovered that Sharp Peake lends itself well to goat raising, that the goats will not only browse over the hills, taking care of themselves, but furnish milk as well. Another boy has brought his ducklings. Boys in China love pets as well as American boys. They love to tend and feed and watch them grow. We are now carried in sedan chairs up Beacon Hill. Here a wonderful view is obtained of both sea and river. We look across the valley - one hill is occupied by a telegraph station, one by Anglican, one by Methodist, and one by Congregational sanitariums. These are resorts where the tired, worn, or sick missionaries may come from the city into this fresh mountain and sea air to recuperate from their arduous labors.

At the top of Beacon Hill are the remains of an ancient landmark, an old stone structure, upon which the beacon fires were lighted, now superseded by the telegraph. At the time of our visit the workmen had been borrowing stone from this structure to work into the foundation of the new Morrison cottage. When our lady missionary discovered this, she was greatly disturbed that one of those historic stones should be displaced. She immediately informed the man in charge that no pay would be forthcoming until all the stones had been carefully replaced. From Beacon Hill we travelled in our chairs up and down the mountainsides to the American Board Sanitarium. This is arranged to afford living accommodations for several families during the summer. It was vacant now and we took possession of one apartment, where we spread the table with the appetizing contents of our bounteous baskets.

One evening we went to the new Manchu Church in the Tartar quarter. We found it filled with men, women, and children expectantly awaiting our arrival. There were special decorations with the word “Welcome” over the platform. Some young men sang the hymn “Blessed be His Name” - having committed it in English for this occasion. The primary children sang several songs accompanied on the organ by their teacher. The young Chinese pastor spoke some ardent words of greeting and welcome, to which we responded. It was a beautiful sight to see the eager, attentive faces of the audience. We were told the people were flocking here since the old restrictions have been removed which segregated them. They were formerly allowed no association with Chinese or foreigners. After the meeting the young men had provided cakes and sweetmeats for us, which were arranged on a small table decorated with candlesticks, flowers, etc.

We visited the East Gate Industrial School, where we found Mr. Ding Bing Yeng in charge. We went into a small room adjoining his office, where on a bed in the comer lay the old woman who had picked him up as a waif and adopted him when a lad. She was a pitiful looking object, with sightless eyes, and lay here day after day praying to die. We were told that often at night Mr. Ding was kept awake by the upbraiding of this sick, repulsive looking old lady. She often complained of his abusing her, but he ministered to her tenderly and patiently, expressing a very beautiful Christian spirit.

We saw the women, men, and boys busily working at their looms weaving cloth, braid, rugs, etc. Here were rescued girls who had been sold as slaves by husbands and fathers. One young girl sat spinning with a baby in her lap. Her husband had sold her to the Hunan soldiers. She had cut off her hair, believing they would not want her if she was thus disfigured.

In the afternoon we went to the Hartwell Memorial Church, where there were gathered about 350 Bible women and day school pupils. There was an address by the pastor; the children sang songs; two earnest talks were given by Chinese women, to which I was invited to respond. After the meeting we went in to see the girls’ day school and partake of refreshments that had been provided.

A dinner was given in our honor that evening. Mr. Beard, president of Foochow College, with some of his teachers and students, was present. This was a real Chinese feast. The dishes consisted of a great variety of courses, among which were clams, mussels, snails, shark’s fins (a rare and expensive delicacy), pigeons’ eggs, meat dumplings, stewed biba, orange soup, the latter served last, and many other delectable dishes too numerous to mention.

Having long known of Dr. Kinnear’s work, we were glad of the opportunity of visiting his new hospital. We saw him treating the eyes of a procession of poor Chinese men. One man lay on a cot with bandaged eyes, having just gone through an operation for the removal of cataracts, a practical demonstration of the restoration of sight to the blind. We saw a young man with a shoulder cut open, the doctor having just removed a dead bone. It was hard to believe this fine building could have been built for $8,000.

One day we were entertained by Mrs. Sites for tiffin, Mr. Sites showing us through the fine buildings of the Methodist College. An English lady, Miss Crump, was also a guest, and later showed us her lace industry, a very unique work she has developed, teaching many of the wives of coolies lacework, and at the same time to read and study the Bible. She has in connection with this a room fitted up as a chapel where religious services are held every Sunday morning.

We enjoyed a call upon Miss Garretson, principal of the Girls’ School at Ponasang. This school has a fine, intelligent body of students. We were shown through the girls’ dormitories, and then taken to the roof of the building, where a far-reaching view is obtained of the surrounding landscape. One observes how the high places about the city have been occupied by Christian work. We look in one direction and see the Methodist School building rising from Nantai Island; in the opposite direction rises Foochow College, marked by the White Pagoda. We know that from these colleges will come forth men and women who will be the future leaders of China. They will receive in these Christian institutions of learning ideals and visions which will help them to uplift the oppressed of their own people.

(Taken from Frank L. Brown’s Sunday School Tour of the Orient, published in 1914, written by Mrs. Emaroy J. Smith.)

Sep 27, 2014

Two letter lie on the desk. One is from a nurses’ training school connected with a beautiful up-to-date hospital in America. “Will you accept the position of superintendent in our hospital?”

The other is from a missionary secretary. “We are needing a nurse for our oldest hospital in China. The hospital is closed because the doctor is ill in America and will not be allowed to return this year unless someone is found to accompany her back to China. Will you consider going for us?”

On the one hand there is the life in a well furnished hospital, congenial work, friends near, an honored profession, under the stars and stripes—and yet? On the other hand, a foreign land, an unknown tongue, strange people, untried climate, opposition of friends, the end of a career—and yet?

And a voice said, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” Will it be easier to answer the first or the second call? Where is the need greater? The twilight deepens. The tenderest voice the world has ever heard breaks the stillness, “Will you go for me? I need you there. I will teach you to love them because they are mine, and I will go with you all the way.” Peace and content come with the decision. In the morning two letters are mailed. Another superintendent is found for the hospital in America and a few months later the oldest hospital for women in China is reopened.

“China is not ready for and does not need nurses,” was one of the greetings. Never mind about China. She does not always know what she needs. God needed one nurse and perhaps more. Later on in the year he also wanted one more doctor; for February 14 brought a beautiful valentine to this oldest hospital in the shape of a very much alive little doctor lady whom the Chinese people soon named the “Good Doctor.”

All diseases known to mankind crowded into the clinics. Houses with dark, unlovely rooms where the lives of thousands of mothers and helpless babies go out every year; trips out into districts where western medicine had never been before; visits to the leper colony, whose hopeless sisters are waiting release in death; dirt, disease, ignorance and age-long superstition, —all these things make one think that China might use a few nurses if she had them.

No national word for nurse, no textbooks, “work fit only for coolies”—these were a few of the difficulties encountered at the beginning.

Trips were made to other parts of China. Letters, arguments, articles and books were written and translated. Conventions were held. To-day there is a fine nurses’ association of China, with its constitution equal to any in the world, a course of study for Chinese nurses, a nurses’ department in the Medical Journal of Shanghai, a national word for nurse and nurses’ schools starting all over China. Calls for nurses are coming from public institutions, the church and the family. All these things prove that China is ready for nurses and now she realizes her need. This was not accomplished in a day. There were hours of teaching, encouraging and explaining. Tears and prayers often mingled before the novices understood. But at last came the realization that this is the kind of work meant when it is said of the Master, “He came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life.”

FIRST GRADUATING CLASS, WITH DR. LYON IN CENTER, DR. HATFIELD AT RIGHT, MISS SIMPSON AT LEFT

Another scene. Four sweet girl graduates, all dressed in white, step forward to receive their diplomas and school pins. Bishop Bashford has just finished his address, and Mrs. Bashford her charge to the class, as she brings the greetings of a hundred thousand mothers of America to the first nurses to graduate from our oldest hospital in China. No, the oldest hospital is gone, but in its place is being raised the Magaw Love Hospital. “I am come that ye might have life and that ye might have it more abundantly,” is the motto given for the school by Mrs. Bashford. May the graduates of the school ever be worthy to follow in the footsteps of that queen of all nurses, Florence Nightingale, for whom the training school is named.

In these years the hospital family has grown to fifteen girls and if you were to talk with the thousands to whom they ministered last year, the answer would be, “God bless our nurses. Their hearts are warm and their hands tender, like ‘Doctor Jesus’ and they have made us understand his love as no one else ever has before.”
Another letter lies on the desk. “My heart is almost breaking for joy to-day. The first class has just been graduated—my jewels for the King. I would rather have had these five years in China than the highest position that America could offer. Perhaps my life is, as you say, buried, but if so, I find it is in a rich mine and my heart’s wish is that every nurse in America might know the joy of investing a score of years here. I am satisfied with the returns.”

(Written by Miss Cora E. Simpson and first published in Woman's Missionary Friend, December, 1913.)

The missionaries at Foochow had been studying the map. They had also been reading the newspapers, such as there were,—and newspapers published in China, in English, of course, were infinitely better, even then, than books on China for putting one in touch with the situation.

The books on China of that day were still mostly fairy tales. Maps were not greatly improved over those in which “Chinese Tartary” used to be shown as bordered by a fringe of griffins and dragons.

East and West were still East and West. The Mandarin at Bonnieburn getting his first lesson about the terrestrial globe on the missionary’s teacup, was hardly more in need of light than missionary secretaries in New York, when the question was the location of a new mission in China.

But the secretaries were men of loyalty and faith. When our Foochow Mission, like many other mission in that time of opportunity, urged an advance, our secretaries set about finding the means to make it.

The opportunity had come with the opening of Peking and the Yangtze Valley in consequence of the Arrow War in 1858 and the treaties of 1860. Mr. Sites had been sent out in view of this very opportunity. But the American war for the Union had intervened and neither men nor money could be had for new work. The year after the war ended, two new men were appointed to our mission.

They were the last to come out by sailing vessel, around the Cape. By the same token they were the last, perhaps, to be received with that lavish joy which marks the child’s anticipation of successive Christmases at an age when Christmases are few and far between. Letters sent home, at the time, record in naïve detail every incident and aspect of the new arrivals.

“We were engaged in the services of our quarterly meeting,”—so runs one letter,—“and had just enjoyed an excellent love-feast; four Chinese had been admitted to baptism and to the fellowship of the Christian Church; a missionary had preached and the members of the church were engaged in joyfully celebrating the Lord’s Supper, when our beloved Brother Sites entered the church and passed up the aisle, followed by a strange gentleman. All eyes were fastened on the stranger and at the first interlude in the services we had the delightful privilege of welcoming our long-expected, long-prayed-for Brother Hart.

“Brother Wheeler’s arrival was also attended with the most propitious circumstances. The members of the Mission had met at the usual time and place, for their monthly business session, and had deliberated in love and harmony concerning the interests of our work, had been unanimous in every decision made and had closed the meeting feeling ‘How good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.’ Just as we separated, Brother Wheeler and his family entered our Mission compound, and with gratitude we welcomed them to their new home in this Eastern land. The Chinese Christians gave him a joyful greeting, and he was deeply moved as he listened that evening to our Chinese brethren heartily singing the good old tunes of his native land.”

Mr. Sites strongly favored the policy of sending only men with some experience in a mission field to open new work. It was understood that these two men, after a sufficient period of apprenticeship at Foochow, should be sent to begin the new missions. Accordingly, Hart was appointed to Central China in 1867 and Wheeler to Peking in 1869.

No spies returning from Canaan ever brought back bigger bunches of promise than our emissary to Central China after his first prospecting tour in the Yangtze Valley. He had gone up the coast to Shanghai, about four hundred and fifty miles, thence up the great river, passing the cities of Chinkiang, Wuhu, Nanking and Kiukiang, all of which cities we now occupy. He was full of enthusiasm as he pictured to us the great valley of the Yangtze, with its fertile plains, and described the immense commercial importance of the Grand Canal,—something we knew of only from the studies of our school days.

He had selected as a starting point for the work the busy port of Kiukiang, on the southernmost bend of the Yangtze near Poyang Lake. He and Mr. Sites, with the zest of a new adventure, began at once estimating the miles southward from Poyang Lake to the borders of Fuhkien, and planning for the time when a Methodist chapel should be planted in every important city, one every twenty miles, until Foochow and Kiukiang should clasp hands in a union love-feast, perchance in our new-found outpost, the City of Lingering Peace.

A barrier of unpromising highlands between the upper Min and the Yangtze basin has delayed the realization of that particular dream. But larger things than were then dreamed have come to pass. When the Methodist Church in China met in quadrennial conference at Foochow last year, there came to the mother mission representatives of five prosperous missions, embracing a church membership of some forty thousand. These delegates came from Peking and a dozen other cities of North China, scattered along hundreds of miles of railway in two provinces; from the whole basin of the Yangtze, between Kiukiang and Shanghai; from Hinghua on the south, where the work which was being pioneered in 1867 had long since expanded into a Conference of its own; and last but perhaps most flourishing field of all, from the Empire Province of West China beyond the Yangtze gorges, fifteen hundred miles from the sea.

A Drowsy Village of the Hinghwa Region

Expansion in China was only an incident in world movements of which China was already a storm centre. Great things were doing in those days in the binding together of East and West. The Atlantic cable; the Suez canal; the Union Pacific railway; restoration and transformation in Japan; the Burlingame mission, which was the first real effort to make China acquainted with the West at home,—these were only a few of the signs of the times. For us at Foochow perhaps the most interesting item of all was the beginning of the Pacific Mail steamship service in 1867.

To get our mail in six weeks was too good to be true! “How wonderful”—writes the missionary to a college friend—“to think of this great steamship, a vast floating palace, crossing the wide Pacific Ocean! Home is one-half nearer than it was a year ago. Can you believe that London and Paris are getting their latest news from us by way of Japan, San Francisco and New York? ‘Fact is stranger than fiction.’ And why may we not hope to see along with these wondrous inventions and scientific achievements a corresponding increase of Christian effort to carry the gospel of peace to all the nations of the earth? Not in the slow and indifferent manner of the past, but with a zeal and energy corresponding to the spirit of the times in all material progress. Look no more toward the ‘Far East’ over seas and oceans, beyond kingdoms and empires, and fancy China to be a remote, strange, unwieldy, unapproachable nation. Life your eyes and look directly into the face of this new, mighty, next-door neighbor, with but a single ocean intervening! I pray that the Church may now arise in the strength of our God and do valiantly in the redemption of China. Why has God allowed Protestant Christian nations to open up in this day the golden treasures of California and Australia? Why, but that these nations may be His messengers of mercy to heathen lands; accomplishing the Saviour’s petition, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.’”

Now if extension was good in China, why should it not extend also to Japan? Might not a Christianized Japan even prove the salvation of China? Japan had now been linked up by steam with both America and China. It was time for American Methodism to be co-operating with other Christian agencies already engaged in the evangelization of the Island Empire.

So reasoned the little band of missionaries at Foochow. In 1871 they wrote home thus:—

“The present breaking up of their ancient social and political systems, with the eager desire of the Japanese to adopt the civilization of Christian nations, indicates that now is the golden opportunity for the Church to sow ‘the seed of the kingdom’ in the minds of the people. At the same time it admonishes us that failure on our part, at this favorable juncture, will greatly increase the difficulty of evangelizing Japan, and prove a serious hindrance to the progress of Christ’s kingdom in the earth.”

The three secretaries promptly replied, indorsing the project.

“It is a matter of first importance,” wrote Durbin and Harris.

“It is our guilt that we undertake nothing,” wrote Terry. And they undertook Japan.

Maclay, who had made the address on the night when Nathan Sites heard his “call,” was now sent from Foochow to open our work in Japan. He afterward became the founder also of our mission in Korea. Thus he ranks with William Butler as a pioneer of three mission fields of Methodism.

In less than the span of a generation of the Methodist Church of Japan, uniting three great Methodist communions, has become an independent organization, with a native Bishop. To-day, in the light of recent history in Eastern Asia, a history of war, of diplomacy, of student migration and of dazzling changes in ancient customs, we can begin to see how Japan is involved in China’s destiny. To those who foresaw the issue in all its larger outlines forty years ago, shall we not accord the meed of vision and of statesmanship?

(Taken from Sarah Moore Sites’ book An Epic to the East, on the life of her husband Nathan Sites. The Book was published in 1912.)

At the Executive in St. Louis, someone said to a group of missionaries, “While you are writing to your many friends, please do not forget to write to the Friend; and if there comes to you any special happening of joy, let your friends share it with you through the Friend.” So to-day I want to tell you about the happiest thing that has happened this year in the “Happy Valley.”

When I first arrived in Shanghai and was waiting for a steamer south, I was entertained in the lovely home of Dr. and Mrs. Lacy. One day Mrs. Lacy asked, “What would you most like to see to-day?” and I told her that one of my greatest desires was to see a Chinese graveyard. She laughed merrily, and replied, “You won’t have to do that to-day, for you are to live in a graveyard.”

When we arrived in Foochow I found that this was so. As soon as one steps outside the compound, graves by the thousand are seen everywhere. My first picnic in China was in a graveyard, and many a service have I since held on the graves.

Last year a dear woman in Baltimore Branch instructed the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society to build her a monument; and our dear secretary mothers, who always know just what is best, wisely decided that the proper place to build a monument is in a graveyard.

During the summer we have been kept busy preparing the piles of sand, brick, cement, and earth for our monument, and laying the foundations. Last week we decided to share our good time with our friends, and invited them in to help lay the cornerstone. The American consul and a large number of the state officials were present, besides Bishop Bashford, Mrs. Bashford, the Foochow Annual and Women’s Conferences, and many other guests.

It will be a year or more before the monument is complete. We have named it the Magaw Memorial Hospital; in Chinese it will be called the Magaw Love Hospital.

In the Annual Report of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, we find this statement: “1875—The first hospital for women in China—Foochow.” Dr. Trask was the founder and builder. The records of those early days read like fairy tales. It was a “red letter day” when that first hospital was dedicated, and through the years its wide-open doors have given a welcome to the tens of thousands of suffering ones who have sought entrance there. How many sad hearts have been healed by the Great Physician, only eternity will tell.

Is it not most fitting that in this, the first year of China’s freedom, should be built the new Love Hospital, given by a western woman to these suffering eastern sisters? If you had been with us that glad day, had seen the happy company and tasted the tea and cakes passed about by the student nurses who were dressed in pretty white suits with blue streamers, had heard the addresses and realized how much our people love this monument and all that it stands for; and then if you could look into the future, down through the beautiful years to come, and know what such a monument will mean to this city, you would say with us: “Truly the building of that monument in the graveyard in the ‘Happy Valley’ is one of the happiest things that has occurred this year.” The happiest day of all will be when it is complete, and we open wide the doors to receive the people who are daily coming to us. Come and help us celebrate our opening day, if you like fire-crackers and a good time!

(Letter written by Miss Cora E. Simpson in 1911, first published in Woman’s Missionary Friend, March 1913.)

Robert Samuel Maclay (1824 — 1907)

“To those who are interested in the evangelization of the Chinese, and to all who desire information concerning the oldest nation in the world and one of the grandest empires on which the sun has ever shone, the following pages are now presented, in the earnest hope and with the fervent prayer that they may contribute somewhat toward the ushering in of that glorious period when China, clothed and in her right mind, shall be found sitting at the feet of Jesus.” — Robert. S. Maclay

About This Website

The Foochow Mission History unfolds itself on January 2, 1847, when Stephen Johnson, the first Protestant missionary to Foochow, set foot on Nantai Island, and it ends on December 11, 1951, when Carleton Lacy, the last China Methodist Bishop, died a lonely and miserable prisoner at Union Hospital. During that century (a little less than 105 years) which saw the greatest collision in history between Orient and Occident, the Western Missionaries as well as the Chinese Christians in Foochow lived a life full of love and pain, of adventure and sacrifice, and of joy and heartbreak. Their story is a soul-stirring one, and needs telling. Their story is God’s story.

But the sad truth is that modern man is all too indifferent to his own past. His memories are fast slipping into oblivion, and this process is hard to reverse.

For years I have been seeking, reading, and collecting materials about the Foochow Mission History, about missionaries, about native converts, and, last but not least, about God himself too, picking up the bits and pieces that are still available and endeavoring to make them fit together into a grand picture. This work I call “Foochow Mission History Project”, and hence this website.

It is my sincere hope that you will enjoy reading this website for whatever reasons. You are, of course, welcome to drop comments here if you like, but if you happen to be a Foochow missionary descendant, or a scholar (no matter amateur or professional) who knows something about the relevant subjects, I do expect more from you. Please write an email to gnudoyng AT gmail DOT com or fill out the contact form below. Thank you!